


do you remember those days?

by breadofthewild



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Brief Claude von Riegan, Brief Ladislava, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Dorks in Love, F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route, Fluff and Angst, Male-Female Friendship, Mentioned Edelgard von Hresvelg, Mentioned Golden Deer Students (Fire Emblem), Mentioned My Unit | Byleth, Mentioned Seteth - Freeform, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Romantic Friendship, at first lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:27:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22092565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breadofthewild/pseuds/breadofthewild
Summary: "And Ferdie was there. We killed Ferdie, Professor, he used to be our friend. Do you remember those days?"
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir & Dorothea Arnault, Ferdinand von Aegir/Dorothea Arnault
Comments: 3
Kudos: 42





	do you remember those days?

**Author's Note:**

> can i get a HELL YEAH for angsty ferdithea
> 
> also yeah i couldn't think of a title lmaooooo

Dorothea is humming quietly to herself as she locates her brush from her pouch. She's looking through Ferdinand's mirror, and she can see him still sleeping soundly in his bed through the reflection. She continues to brush out her hair to the tune of a familiar melody, and slowly, Ferdinand stirs in his sleep.

"Awake already, Ferdie?" Dorothea singsongs, running her fingers through her smooth chestnut hair. "There's still an hour before class."

Ferdinand grumbles, then sits upright to face Dorothea through the mirror. His hair is unkempt, his eyes still not fully open, and he's rubbing them as he yawns. Dorothea turns on her heels to face him, giving him her signature cheeky smile.

"How did you sleep, Dorothea?" Ferdinand asks groggily, yawning once more into his palm. His words are slightly slurred as he's still in the process of really waking up, but Dorothea finds it to be adorable. Her smile is still goofily plastered across her face as she watches Ferdie wake up.

"Pretty good, thank you. You're a loud snorer, did you know that?"

Ferdinand's cheeks flush a bright red, and he's fully awake now. Dorothea bursts into laughter, her hand up to her mouth in an involuntary reflex. She does it often, covering half of her face when she laughs, and Ferdinand always notices because he's always looking for her smiles.

Dorothea resumes packing the rest of her things without another word. A brush, a few clothes strewn across the floor, some accessories she kept on her person. Ferdinand observes her every move, the elegant way she maneuvers her body, the smooth movements she makes each time she reaches for something. She's nothing short of a goddess in Ferdinand's eyes, and she always disagrees with his opinion entirely every time he mentions it.

But he's never lying when he tells her those things. Ferdinand is never capable of lying—and telling Dorothea that she is one of the most beautiful people he's ever met isn't an exception.

She was wary of him at first. In fact, she didn't like him at all. She saw him as any other arrogant noble, one that only cared for status, but Ferdinand definitely proved her wrong. His misadventures with baking her pastries in the middle of the night and confessing that he believed she was as beautiful as a water nymph when they were children opened Dorothea's eyes to something she's never bothered to look for in Ferdinand before. From that point on, when they spoke, Dorothea looked into his eyes.

And what she found was pure genuity.

"I should get going," Dorothea announces once she's finally packed the last of her things. She peeks out Ferdinand's window to catch a glimpse of the sun, telling her there were about forty minutes until class started. She's memorized the sun's path in the mornings when she woke up beside Ferdinand, and sometimes, without even noticing, she looks towards the horizon for the sun.

Dorothea's routine of sneaking out of the nobles' quarters and down to her own before Seteth made his morning rounds was something she's grown accustomed to by this point. It was surely a nuisance getting up so early in the morning, but she found that it was worth it as time went on. 

Ferdinand stood from his bed, stretching his arms above his head. He runs a hand through his hair while striding over to Dorothea's side as she places a hand on the door handle.

He wraps his arms around her from behind. She's startled at first, but then finds herself giggling into his chest as she turns around to face him. Ferdinand flushes with a warm smile across his face, pulling her in close to his body and hugging her as if they weren't about to see each other again in forty minutes for class. Dorothea slings her arms around Ferdinand's torso, hugging him back, and she rests her head against his shoulder. He can smell her hair from there, a lavender smell he's grown used to but never tired of. He buries his head into hers more, squeezing her tighter.

"Stay safe," he mumbles into her hair. Dorothea smiles.

"You act like I'm about to head out to war. I'm just walking down to my own quarters." Dorothea chuckles, a sound that makes Ferdinand's heart feel light. "You're so silly, Ferdie."

Dorothea steps out of Ferdinand's grasp, tousling his hair. She gives him a wide grin, her eyes never averting from his. She's the first to break her gaze as she turns around to head outside, their pinkies locked until she's out of his room. Their fingers trail away from each other, and quickly, Dorothea shoots another look behind her.

"I'll see you in a bit," Dorothea quietly sings, sending Ferdinand a smile over her shoulder. He nods and tells her to be careful again, to which Dorothea makes fun of him. He closes his quarter's door behind her as she steps outside as unnoticed as possible, tiptoeing down the hallway to avoid drawing attention. When the door clicks shut, Ferdinand's eyes trail to the floor. He catches a glimpse of a small hair accessory that bore the logo of the Mittelfrank Opera Company.

♪

There is something sickening that overcomes Dorothea as the Great Bridge of Myrddin comes into view. It's large, way larger than she expected it to be, although she wasn't sure what else she could've expected anyhow. They were told it was the only bridge large enough to fit an army, but somehow, no one seemed to believe it until their own eyes rested upon the sight. Her stomach churns.

"Pre-battle nerves?" Claude asks the songstress as he glides next to her on his wyvern. Dorothea turns to face the leader of the Alliance, his charming smile somehow putting her at ease for just a moment.

"Something like that," Dorothea replies, fidgeting with her thumbs. "I wonder...do you think we'll see some of our old classmates out there?"

Claude stops to think before he answers, debating his words carefully. Finally, he sighs, shrugging at the thought of Dorothea's response. "I'm honestly not too sure. Of course, I wouldn't wish to for obvious reasons...but I wouldn't put anything past Edelgard. This is a war, after all."

Dorothea frowns, her eyes wandering back to the path before her. She sighs, counting back to her academy days and remembering when she officially transferred into the Golden Deer class. Claude, Hilda, and the professor welcomed her with such warmth that she felt at home right away.

It only brought one bad thing. She wasn't in Ferdie's class anymore.

Dorothea continues to trudge on, the bridge coming closer and closer. They'll be there any second, and Dorothea dreads the moment she will have to set foot on the bridge to fight. But she knows she has to. There's no other choice.

When they finally launch their surprise attack on Myrddin, the Imperial Army will still be well-equipped. Multiple commanders will have secured their soldiers, and Dorothea will fight onwards with the heavy thought of killing in her mind. Before they advance, she will look to the sky and wonder where her former classmates are, now that she is fighting the Empire.

And within a few moments, she will see Ferdinand standing before her, mounted on his horse with a look of determination in his eyes.

And after seeing him, Dorothea will almost weep. She will almost cry, tears brimming the edges of her eyes, threatening to spill over. But she realizes that this is what she expected all along. She just didn't want to believe it'd be true. Her heart twists at the feeling of happiness she gets when she sees Ferdinand after five years, but her heart also drops at the thought of the circumstances they've come to meet to see each other again.

They'll pit themselves against each other in the battle. Dorothea will run up to Ferdinand, blindly, foolishly, and she will hear the professor calling out to her to stop. She will hear everyone's words behind her telling her to be careful because one of the enemy commanders was right before her.

He was an enemy commander, but he was also a friend.

Ferdinand can see her. She's running towards him, and there's a strange look in her eyes. Determination, but also hesitation. Reluctance. Like maybe she shouldn't have come here today. But she stops herself right in front of Ferdinand's horse, panting madly, her hands unarmed.

"Dorothea," Ferdinand breathes, faltering. "I would...I would never expect to see you here."

"Ferdie," Dorothea responds, the nickname foreign on her lips and in the air. It stings Ferdinand's heart, the sound of that name, but all he does is shake his head gently. "I never would've expected to see you here either."

Ferdinand clutches his lance tightly, but can't get himself to raise it. He is trembling beneath all his armor, and the wind will sway his hair in front of his face for just a moment to obscure his vision. He won't see anything but orange, and for a second, it reminds him of the sun that would bathe Dorothea in a golden hue on the days they escaped the monastery together to catch the sunset.

"Your hair," Dorothea says, her voice far. "You...you grew it out like I told you to."

"Yes," Ferdinand agrees, because he remembers that he initially started growing it out because Dorothea said she'd love for him to. He remembers the night she ran her fingers through his hair during their academy days and joked that she'd love to see his hair long and luscious, just like the length of hers. And Ferdinand nodded, telling her he'll do it just for fun, to see how it goes. He will eventually forget for a few years that Dorothea was the one that first suggested growing his hair out, but every time he looked at himself through mirrors and glasses, he will see the locks cascading down his shoulders and remember the distant memory of a friend telling him he should grow his hair out.

Dorothea stands a little taller. "Oh, Ferdie. You opposed Edie for so long..." Her eyes are on the sky, towards the horizon, towards the sun. She's not looking at Ferdinand when she speaks her mind to him, and she's swaying her body to hide the fact that she's trembling. "Why did you...why did you stay?"

They both know what she means. She left the Empire to follow a leader with ideals more aligned with hers; and he stayed behind to follow a leader that waged war on the world.

Ferdinand's eyes narrow. Dorothea's looks haven't changed much in the years he hasn't seen her, but he does notice that her smile never appears on her face. It was silly to assume she'd ever smile about something like this, something like war. People started to grow used to the fighting, but Dorothea never did.

"I won't try to explain my ideals or hers. I wish you'd understand," Ferdinand replies, his voice stern. He's only ever looking past Dorothea or below her eyes, because he can't seem to look at her. Even after so many years, the sight of her was somewhat breathtaking. So he didn't look. "But you won't. I won't let anybody seize this bridge, Dorothea." Then, a little quieter, "Please, step out of the way."

Dorothea's heart hardens, and her fists ball up so tightly she isn't shaking anymore. She's breathing hard, almost as if on the verge of crying, but she doesn't let any emotion reach her eyes. She stares down at Ferdinand, her eyes glimmering that emerald he always dreamed about, but her words were only blunt.

"I can't let Edie keep doing what she's doing. You know that, Ferdie. I will not be stepping out of the way."

She stands a little taller once more, the pose of a diva, the poise of a fighter. Dorothea's hands are unclenched now, and her arms outstretched before her. Ferdinand knows what she's doing, and he starts running.

He raises his lance to the sky and doesn't let himself breathe, doesn't let himself think about who he's about to fight—he charges towards her, but Dorothea never falters. The familiar circle of magic appears between them, one that Ferdinand recognizes from his studies but more so from when he watched Dorothea cast spells for fun with him.

Their eyes connect, but nothing deep is left there anymore. In that moment, there is nothing but rage between the two—they are angry at the world, but never at each other. Dorothea feels like she's playing a tragic heroine in an opera, and Ferdinand feels like he's watching a tragedy unfold. Both of their eyes are fierce, hiding their true emotions, all for the sake of their respective leaders. Ferdinand can see the person he loved so desperately five years ago before him, but she is nothing more than an enemy now. And Dorothea can see the one true person who understood her when they were students, but he is nothing more than a threat now. Ferdinand is quick, but not as quick as Dorothea's casting. A flash of lightning emitted from her palms strikes him, and his horse yelps in pain as it collapses to the ground.

His breath hitches, and the world goes silent. He hears a voice in the distance, but it's not something he wants to hear because he realizes after a moment it's Ladislava calling out for him. But finally, in the midst of the ringing in his ears but also the silence of the world, he finds a voice he wants to hear.

"I'm sorry, Ferdie."

It'll be the last words he hears, and Dorothea will know it. She'll sprint back to her group when the professor calls out to her worriedly, never stopping to take another look back. She will feel the weight of the world on her shoulders, the burden of still being alive even though she had just killed her friend. The professor will watch as Dorothea fights from that point on in a more sluggish way, as if she's given up. And she will ask her what happened out there, but Dorothea will only shake her head and say nothing.

Amidst all the chaos across Myrddin, Dorothea won't even see that Ferdinand had been clutching a small hair accessory in his hands the whole time, one that had the logo of the Mittelfrank Opera Company on it.


End file.
